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As someone with an iPhone 12 Pro and a Galaxy S21 Ultra, swapping my SIM between each every ~two months; this situation has absolutely changed sometime in the p
by 015a 5y ago
As someone with an iPhone 12 Pro and a Galaxy S21 Ultra, swapping my SIM between each every ~two months; this situation has absolutely changed sometime in the past couple years.
Android's idle power draw, at least on the S21 Ultra, is fantastic. I'll sometimes leave this phone on, with no SIM in it but connected to WiFi, sitting on my desk, using it every once in a while for Tik Tok or whatever, and it'll last a week or more. The iPhone is pretty similar.
But display-on time, apples to apples; the iPhone has fallen behind. With the 12 Pro, most days I'll end at 5-10%. At least once every couple weeks, the day will end with the iPhone having already shut down. In comparison, on the S21 Ultra: I give it ~20-40 minutes of charge every day while I'm working, just unplug my USB-C laptop and plug it into the phone, and that's it. I don't charge it at night. Its battery life is ungodly; by the time I go to bed, its at 50-60%. Wake up, plug it in while I'm showering and making coffee, good to go.
- pdimitar 5y agoI think you are aware that 4G radio can draw a lot of energy so that might be an unfair comparison with the iPhone. A more objective test would be for both to have SIM, or both to not have a SIM. Then again, iPhones have objectively weaker batteries compared to a lot of Androids (as in, less mAh). I am not claiming that there are no better Android devices nowadays btw; not at all. I'd be happy if the OEMs finally caught up with this nasty problem! I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones.
- jsight 5y ago> I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones. I'll respond to your earlier post too, but this is actually the answer that I was looking for. The Android world was a very different place back in 2017. The best battery life that I got out of an Android back then was an LG G2. I think that it was competitive with the iPhone, but many other Android devices of the era were not.
- 015a 5y agoBoth the iPhone 12 Pro and S21 Ultra have 5G radios (though their usage here is probably 80% on wifi, 20% on non-UWB 5G most days). My point is comparing their battery lives when they have the SIM in them. So, not which one lasted the longest yesterday, one with the SIM and one without, but rather comparing across time, how did the S21 (my current phone) fair today, versus how did the iPhone generally fair a few weeks ago when the SIM was in it. Not exactly scientific; just what I've observed and felt. And the unscientific conclusion I've drawn is that the idle time is pretty similar between the iPhone 12 Pro and S21 Ultra, but the "active" radios-on SIM-in screen-being-used-all-day time definitely favors the S21 Ultra. > I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones. You're 100% right; Android's track record has been pretty darn bad when it comes to standby time. But, I think its actually gotten a lot better. There are some reports that Samsung's Android flavors, specifically, are very aggressive when it comes to background app killing; that may be it (and, frankly, I don't notice any negative side-effects from it. if its happening, its transparent). Or maybe it was something more general in a later version of Android. Or maybe just huge batteries. But; something has changed.
- pdimitar 5y agoThank you, those are very valuable anecdotes to keep in mind for the future!